Having a child and the path to citizenship after the 2025 reform

A child born on the territory of Argentina is Argentine by birth regardless of the parents' citizenship (apart from narrow diplomatic exceptions).

A parent of an Argentine child receives residencia temporaria for reunificación familiar for a term of up to 3 years – not automatic permanent residency, as guides wrote before 2025 (art. 23 ñ Ley 25.871 after Decreto 366/2025).

Family residency is filed through RaDEX: a valid passport, lawful entry, domicilio, an Argentine criminal record certificate, criminal record certificates from the countries of residence for more than a year in the last 3 years, a document proving kinship and the child's document. The processing time is not stated on the official page.

Naturalisation on the ordinary basis is available after 2 years of continuous and lawful residence immediately before applying (Ley 346, art. 2). The 2025 reform (DNU 366/2025, art. 37) added that continuity means not a single trip abroad during the whole period, and moved the granting of citizenship from federal judges to the migration service. In 2026 courts declared this part of the reform invalid: the Civil and Commercial Chamber on 18.06.2026 (Volosh case), the National Electoral Chamber on 30.06.2026 (Yang case), and the federal court of Esquel on 26.08.2026 (articles 4, 37 and 39 of the decree). Citizenship applications are again heard by federal judges, and the previous wording of the law contains no direct ban on trips abroad. The government announced it will appeal to the Supreme Court; as of 04.10.2026 we found no Supreme Court decision, so which rule on trips abroad will stand is still unknown.

Residencia precaria does not count for arraigo or for citizenship. The date the application was filed in RaDEX and the period of waiting for a decision are not the starting point of the two years.

The safe starting point for the two years is the date a full residencia temporaria or permanente is actually granted, not the birth of the child and not the filing of the application. Credit for the tourist period is not confirmed in DNM's public materials – until a written reply it should be counted as zero.

Permanent residency on the general arraigo basis for citizens of non-MERCOSUR countries requires 3 years of valid temporaria. That is longer than the two years to naturalisation, so permanent residency is not a required intermediate step on the way to citizenship.

The fee for temporaria for citizens of non-MERCOSUR countries is 100 UMSM. At 1 UMSM = ARS 1,000 (Decreto 584/2024) that is ARS 100,000 per person – excluding translations, apostilles and the DNI.

A foreigner's first DNI – ARS 20,000 per person. A first DNI for a child born in Argentina is free (RENAPER 2026 tariff).

A single case, August 2026: a consultation with a Russian-speaking resident and a lawyer brought in took about 3.5 hours and cost $100; further support was estimated at about $1,200 per person. Not verified, not a market price.